There is currently a great deal of controversy about a critical issue in educational research: What constitutes valid evidence for determining whether educational innovations are effective? One side of the controversy is reflected in the U.S. Department of Education's current policies and funding programs. This side emphasizes methodological…

Within-class experimental designs (with experimental and control groups in the same classroom) are subject to diffusion effects whereby both experimental and control students benefit from the intervention, thereby contaminating the control group and biasing evaluations of intervention effects. In support of diffusion effects, this study shows that…

The experimental treatment was more effective in increasing vocational development than either the individual counseling or control treatments, and individual counseling was more effective than the control treatment. No differences were found among groups in regard to individual counselors, sex of students, or in student counseling assessments.…

This research was aimed at adapting the Utah State University Classroom Management Program for use in elementary mainstreaming classrooms and evaluating the program's effectiveness in changing teacher and pupil behavior. The program appears to be powerful in changing teacher behavior and an effective classroom management training tool. (Author/AL)

Groups of adolescent, math-anxious girls were either tutored in mathematics, tutored with self-instruction to reduce anxiety, or received no treatment. Tutoring and self-instruction resulted in increased ranked preferences for math, while math achievement increased more for the self-instruction group. (Author/GK)

Laboratory and a field studies contrasted the egotism and expectancy-covariance approaches to attribution for achievement outcomes. Subjects' expectations and the basis of these expectations were varied and outcomes were then manipulated. Results supported egotism, suggesting that motivational factors can determine attributions to ability and task…

Methods of using simplified time series analysis (STSA) in evaluating clinical programs are discussed. STSA assists in addressing problems of attrition/augmentation of subjects in programs with changing populations. Combining individually calculated "C" statistics in a simple aggregate analysis of restraint usage by nursing home staff…

Adaptive Hypermedia Systems can be developed to accommodate a variety of individual differences, including learning style and cognitive style. This study investigates the hypothesis that adaptive hypermedia accommodating cognitive styles can be beneficial for the observed learning outcomes. A prototype system, designed to be adapted to individual…

This paper focuses on two increasingly important issues in teacher education: the design of more skill-based education and the involvement of students by means of peer assessment. Ninety-three student teachers were trained in one important peer-assessment skill, namely 'defining performance criteria'. This training, which consisted of four…

Despite inconclusive evidence regarding the effectiveness of cognitive conflict, educators still consider it a significant instructional strategy. One of the challenges of current research is to study the conditions under which cognitive conflict is effective. This research examines the notion that cognitive conflict may have dissimilar effects…

This study investigates the effect of CMC participation on language learners' willingness to learn more about the target culture through study abroad. Also, it seeks to discern whether CMC activities improve language learners' self-perception that they have learned more about the target culture. An experimental group of 23 U.S. university students…

Reading therapy has been shown to be effective in treating reading disabilities (RD) in dyslexic children, but little is known of its use in subjects with mild mental retardation (MR). Twenty adult volunteers, with both RD and mild MR, underwent 60 consecutive weeks in a cognitive remediation program, and were compared with 32 untreated control…

This study was designed to examine the effects of adults' labeling and use of social groups on preschool children's intergroup attitudes. Children (N=87, aged 3-5) attending day care were given measures of classification skill and self-esteem and assigned to membership in a novel ("red" or "blue") social group. In experimental classrooms, teachers…

The authors investigated the development of metacognitive skill (MS) of 43 children from preschool to the 2nd grade (6-8 years of age) in a problem-solving situation. The children's skill to direct, guide, and monitor their performance in a play-like problem-solving context was evaluated in 3 experimental groups of preschool children with high,…